CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ/CHRONICLE
Joseph Conwright, who bought his home when Parchester was founded, waves at a passing neighbor. Race and etnicity in Richmond's historically African-American Parchester neighborhood.

Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ/CHRONICLE
Joseph Conwright, who bought...

Image 2 of 4

CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ/CHRONICLE
Parchester kids, (R)Alfonso Alarcon,11,hands a ball to baby Aljon Foster,age 1, who is being held by Tiffany Lewis,age 9, on a weeday afternoon. In back, playing basketball are (red top) Eriana Lewis, age 5, and Branson Clark, age 12. Race and ethnicity in Richmond's historically African-American Parchester neighborhood.

CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ/CHRONICLE
Jimena Sanchez, age 5 (in foreground), and sister, Emily Sanchez, play in the front yard of their aunt's home in Parchester. They,too, live in the neighborhood. Race and etnicity in Richmond's historically African-American Parchester neighborhood.

The city of Richmond, African Americans discovered at the end of World War II, was a fair-weather friend. The multitudes who had moved west to work in the shipyards and other industries suddenly found the welcome mats firmly rolled up and packed away. Temporary, wartime housing was marked for demolition, and the management at other developments coolly turned away when black families came knocking.

It was during this bleak period that Parchester Village materialized. The cluster of 400 single-family homes, built on a remote patch of land north of the old city limits, was advertised as a "community for all Americans."

Whites quickly backed away when they saw their neighbors, however, and the dream of creating a multiracial neighborhood sputtered out. Instead, a different dream was realized: The creation of a tight community of working- and middle-class black homeowners. As the name implied, Parchester was, indeed,

a village -- a place with backyard barbecues and an active neighborhood association; a place where kids played in the streets and neighbors up and down the block preened when another young resident went on to become a doctor or teacher or politician.

But now, 52 years later, the founders' vision might actually be coming to fruition. A wave of 50,000 new Latino residents moved to Oakland and Richmond in the 1990s, and some of them found their way to this bayside enclave.

According to the 2000 census, 15 percent of Parchester's residents are Latino -- and locals say that figure continues to climb. (Parchester's population hovers around 1,000, but because of the way the census blocks are broken down, it's not possible to get an exact count.) A smattering of the population is white, Asian or biracial. The rest, almost 80 percent, are African American. Once again, Parchester residents are trading one dream for another: This time, they are exchanging a nurturing all-black environment for a place where children from different backgrounds play ball and ride their bikes together.

"Parchester has always had a sense of community and neighbors looking after each other. For a long time, it was isolated out here, so you really got that, " said Eddrick Osborne, 34, who grew up in the neighborhood and moved back with his wife and young daughter in 1994. "We welcome anyone who wants to come in and take care of the property and be good neighbors. That seems to be the majority of folks coming out here. . . . It doesn't matter what color you are."

The transition has, thus far, been "real smooth," said Joe Brown, acting president of the Parchester Village Neighborhood Council. "I've been surprised. " Occasionally, old-timers will grumble that Parchester is losing its authenticity, he said, but for all their nostalgia and pride, most accept and even embrace the change.

But they don't forget their history. Many residents can recite the story: In 1949, Rev. Guthrie John Williams, a determined black pastor, threw his support behind incumbent council member Amos Hinkley in exchange for the candidate's pledge to push for more housing for African Americans. Hinkley lost the race but nonetheless managed to introduce Williams and Fred Parr, a wealthy white developer. The meeting was a success -- Parr eventually agreed to donate his property near Point Pinole, and Parchester sprouted off Giant Highway on a spit of land wedged between two sets of railroad tracks. The single-family, one-story dwellings built side by side on 5,000 square-foot lots all had flattops and commodious front and backyards. Some claim that it was the first new tract-home development for blacks in the state.

Parchester ressidents have waged and won numerous battles over the years -- beginning in 1950 when they sued for the right to send their children to Richmond public schools. Residents have also protested development bound to deflate property value and fought for street lights and bus service and to gain admittance to the formerly all-white Richmond Country Club that stares down at them from its perch across the tracks and up on a hill.

In 1950, before the development was complete, Joseph Conwright, a meat market manager and musician, paid $250 down for an $8,250, three-bedroom house.

He and his family would bring picnic lunches to lot 143 and watch their house go up one board at a time.

At 77, Conwright still lives in the ranch-red house on Griffin Drive. An American flag waves out front -- the sixth one in almost as many decades. His children are all grown; his wife and most of the other original buyers have died. But Conwright is as attached as ever to his modest house, the garden out back and the red shingles that seem to grow a shade redder every time he repaints. "I wouldn't live nowhere else but here," he said. "This is it."

Another original settler, 83-year-old Mildred Hooper, lives around the corner in a house with clumps of calla lilies out front and a big glass candy jar in the living room. "You've got to have love when you're building a neighborhood," she said, "and we had plenty of it."

Despite this neighborhood grit, Parchester went through a period of decline,

hitting a nadir in the late '80s and early '90s. The neighborhood market, dry cleaners, gas station and nightclub had long-since shut down, and drugs ate away at the community. In 1993, a 17-year-old boy was killed in a drive-by shooting outside the neighborhood center. The village began to lose its elderly residents and some of their homes, inherited by indifferent children, were rented out or worse, boarded up, Brown said.

To this day, Charleszetta Hunt, 55, draws herself up at the mention of the notorious hang-out corner at Griffin Drive and McGlothen Way. She will not, she said sharply, let her grandchildren mill around over there "as long as I'm living."

On April 21, a 15-year-old boy was shot on Griffin Drive -- and it wasn't the first shooting of the year, Brown said. "Sometimes you can have one or two places where you get some illegal activity going on, and all the sudden something like this happens," Brown said. "It bothers me that it happens, but I mean, some of those things happen any place."

These shootings notwithstanding, crime is down in Parchester, he pointed out. And though the neighborhood hasn't quite escaped the reputation it acquired during harder times and some of the aging homes have a weary look, Parchester is in remarkably good health these days.

Property value has shot up -- houses are now selling for as much as $225, 000, said Deborah Hair, an agent at Century 21. Just a decade ago, she said, buyers could find homes there for less than $50,000. Only a few of those disreputable abandoned units remain; the rest have been snatched up by people hungry for affordable, decent homes. Many of the Latino families moving in are young parents with children, and the explosion of kids has been a great boon, Brown said.

The neighborhood, with its matchinghomes standing in tidy rows like attentive soldiers, could probably qualify for the National Register of Historic Places, said Shelby Sampson of the Richmond Museum of History. Driving over the railroad tracks and past the entry gate seems like a misty trip to a distant era. On a recent Thursday, people were mowing lawns and planting in their backyards. Children, off on spring break, rode their bikes and skateboards and shot baskets under a fuming sky.

"It's, like, family orientated here," said Regina Lewis, 13, playing with a boisterous group of black and Latino kids who looked as if they had stepped straight out of a real estate agent's advertisement.

The neighborhood is plenty villagelike still, say youngsters who don't always appreciate the extra sets of eyes and ears. Neighbors knew that Cynthia Hooper, 22, wasn't allowed off the block when she was small, and they would report her to her grandmother if she ventured out too far.

Hunt's granddaughter, Jessica Brown, says neighbors will phone her house if anything looks the least bit suspicious, and her great-grandmother always seems to find out when the 18-year-old has been talking to boys. One busybody down the street particularly irks her: "She can probably tell you what we're doing right now!" she said.

This familial spirit doesn't quite extend to Parchester's newest residents. Several Latinos said they maintain a friendly distance from their neighbors. Sergio Meraz, 25, a Mexican immigrant, said he hasn't had any problems, but his English is limited, and he and his family largely keep to themselves. Fourteen-year-old Sara Sanchez, the child of Mexican immigrants, lives with her family in a house her mother decided -- over her daughter's objections -- to paint two shades of purple after they moved in two years ago. Sanchez echoed the same sentiments: The neighbors are mostly welcoming, but "we don't get involved with them."

With the exception of two white residents, everyone who attends neighborhood council meetings is African American, said Hunt, the council vice president. But the association is making an effort to reach out: The last newsletter was written in English and Spanish. They plan to gear some of the entertainment at the next neighborhood festival to the Latino community.

Diversity is simply a fact of life at home and in the world at large -- and maybe that's the way it should be, several black residents said. "Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have an African American neighborhood," said Cynthia Hooper. "But we're in a diverse society today. . . . Not everybody is always going to look exactly like you."

There is one lingering worry that some locals harbor: that a big-shot developer will catch wind of their good fortune and somehow try to grab their land and displace them, reinventing the area -- residents say this only half in jest -- as Parchester-By-The-Bay. That concern is not new, Brown said, but has sharpened as Richmond has migrated north sweeping new roads and development along and rendering the Parchester plot more centrally located and precious.

On a quiet afternoon at the neighborhood center, Hunt and Pamelar Kimble, children of early Parchester settlers, chatted about this remote threat.

"Now everything is moving so fast, we have to stay very alert," Hunt said.

"But my mama and her mama -- they don't care what happens," Kimble said. "Both of their homes will still be sitting here."

"We have that strong thing," Hunt said. "This is home, and I'm not going nowhere."

About the series

The 2000 census outlined a number of broad patterns in the Bay Area: the spread of diversity, the growth of the Asian and Latino populations, the movement of African Americans to the suburbs, the widening of a racial gap among home buyers. How are those changes being felt in pockets of the East Bay - in corner stores, at homeowners association meetings, on playgrounds, over fences, in living rooms? What is happening in Oakland's Laurel District? Or in Mission San Jose in Fremont?

This six-week series, "Of Race and Place," examines the experiences and attitudes of East Bay residents living in, and trying to make sense of, an increasingly multicultural society. .

Next week

Lessons from Oakland's Laurel District. .

Talk to us

How do people get along in your neighborhood? On your block? How has your neighborhood changed in the last decade, and how do you feel about that? E- mail your thoughts to ebayfriday@sfchronicle.com. Please include your name, age, neighborhood, and phone number (for verification purposes only). We will publish a sampling of responses in a future issue.